Dark Tuning: Blood, Ballads & Bad Seeds

As rock’s foremost laureate of noir, it was perhaps inevitable that Nick Cave would dedicate an entire album to the murder ballad — a folk tradition dating back to the eighteenth century built on gruesome retellings of violence and death. Yet Murder Ballads is far from the brooding, oppressive record you might expect. The band are almost playful here, with Cave taking evident delight in conjuring a darkly glittering gallery of murderous schoolgirls, distraught spouses, and psychotic serial killers, all set to a claustrophobic soundscape that makes the carnage feel strangely seductive.

The highlights are viscerally unforgettable — “Stagger Lee” reimagines the legendary bad man performing unspeakable acts at the Bucket of Blood inn, while “The Curse of Millhaven” unleashes the angelic Loretta as a 14-year-old banshee revelling in slaughter. Most surprisingly, the duet “Where The Wild Roses Grow” with pop siren Kylie Minogue became an unlikely hit, its tenderness making the violence all the more chilling. The album closes with a surprisingly tender rendition of Dylan’s “Death Is Not The End,” featuring PJ Harvey and Shane MacGowan — a reminder that beneath all the bloodshed, Cave remains one of music’s most compassionate storytellers.

≈(1996)